People and Events

Some motorists stopped by the California Highway Patrol in Los Angeles began getting something in addition to the usual citations Tuesday.

It’s been legal to go 65 m.p.h. on a few highways in California since last June, but not many drivers seemed to know where the legal areas are--and fewer still had any idea of how to find out.

So the Greater Los Angeles Motor Car Dealers Assn. had some maps printed--10,000 of them for a test--with 65 m.p.h. zones in red. The CHP agreed to try distributing them, and hit on what seemed like a logical and efficient method: hand them out with each speeding ticket.

“The point,” CHP Southern Division Cmdr. Edward W. Gomez said, “is to let motorists know we have their safety in mind.”

But, of course, you still get the citation.

And none of those 65-m.p.h. zones is in Los Angeles County . . .

Good news for members of the Westside social club that “adopted” a North American alligator called Cajun Kate at the Los Angeles Zoo, promising to help feed and care for her. Zookeepers said Kate, who is 10 years old and weighs 125 pounds, usually likes a diet of dead rats--but only from April to October.

The rest of the year, she doesn’t eat at all.

(Only one more day to go . . . )

Covina bartender James (J.C.) Higgins said he can wait. . . .

The Glendora Chamber of Commerce offered a Camaro Z-28 IROC to anyone who could sink a hole-in-one on the 163-yard, par three, seventh hole in its amateur golf tournament last year. More than 100 people saw Higgins make the shot.

But it’s been just one sand trap after another ever since.

Though the car was valued at $17,245, the Chamber of Commerce had only a $12,500 insurance policy to cover the possibility that someone might win it. So the chamber declined to award Higgins the prize.

So he sued.

The case, in which the chamber, the auto dealer and the insurance agent were all co-defendants, was scheduled for trial in West Covina’s Citrus Municipal Court on Monday.

It was postponed when one of the defendants was unable to appear, and the defendants seized the moment to renew offers to settle out of court for a little more than 70 cents on the dollar.

But Higgins said he didn’t mind the postponement--and wasn’t interested in the offers. “I’m not going to let them off for one penny less,” he said. “It’s just a matter of waiting . . . and I got as much of that as anyone.”

Suspected cocaine dealer Vincent Cornell Morgan, 19, made a little mistake while apparently trying to run away from Inglewood police.

Spotted making what looked like a sale of “crack” cocaine to a motorist in Inglewood, police said, Morgan jumped two backyard fences and went through three yards before he drew a handgun and tried to fire at his pursuers.

“He fired his gun with the right hand,” Inglewood Sgt. Harold Moret said, “and shot himself in the left arm . . . “

Moret said the officers couldn’t offer much sympathy. But they did take Morgan to a hospital emergency ward for treatment--before booking him on suspicion of attempted murder, possession of cocaine for sale and possession of a stolen weapon.

One of the items left behind by Pope John Paul II on his visit to Los Angeles was the stole he wore for morning prayer services at San Fernando Mission.

Msgr. Francis Weber, archivist for the Los Angeles Archdiocese and director of the mission, said the stole (a narrow cloth band that goes around the neck) was especially made for the occasion and intended--like the mission guest book he signed and the white papal skull cap--to be put on display along with other “papabilia” in the archives.

But the stole didn’t go into the collection at once.

Instead, it waited at the mission until the next Sunday when, Weber said, he just “happened to wear it” himself while celebrating Mass.

Weber said he was sure the Pope wouldn’t mind.

And besides:

“It won’t be worn again,” he promised.